Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Turf Club, Brandon's, the Hilton, and Bridgetown {Barbados}

Tuesday was the last full day we had the rental car. We knew we wanted to go out and see more of the island, but weren't sure what exactly to do. Thankfully the day before, while at St. Nicholas Abbey, the plantation owner's son, Simon, told us about this great garden that was worth the trip. He said it was called Hunte's Gardens and was built in a sinkhole.

We figured that before we hit the gardens Ryan wanted to get in a surf and we also wanted to walk around Bridgetown a bit. On the way home from the gardens we also were planning on doing a little snorkeling. While sitting on the couch Monday night, Ryan was flipping through one of the magazines on the table and came across an article on Running in Barbados. It mentioned that the roads can be a scary place (which I found out the hard way by doing a 2 mile run on them that morning), but that there was a horse track on the island that folks could run at. He showed me the article and we looked on our map to see where the track was. No joke, it was about 5 minutes from where Ryan was planning on surfing. I figured it was a sign and knew I had to run there before we went on our adventure.Tuesday morning we packed up the rental car with all of our stuff (surf gear, running goodies, snorkel equipment, food and water - Ryan made a makeshift cooler out of one of the pots from the kitchen that he filled with ice and taped shut) and hit the road.We made our way over to the racetrack and then Ryan showed me the way to get to where he was surfing. I was planning on doing 8 miles so figured he'd be done before me. I forgot to take into account how hot and humid it would be. I had a bottle of water with me, but I noticed I had already drank half of it by mile 2 and knew I wouldn't be able to do 8 miles. I ended up running a 5K because I didn't want to push it, especially with the full day ahead of us. It was still an experience to run at the track (there was only one guy on a horse while I was there and he only did one lap, but pretty awesome nonetheless).

I watched Ryan surf for a bit at Brandon's and then he came in. We were just a little ways down the street from the Hilton, which was supposed to have one of the four Barbados lighthouses at it, so we drove down to walk around the grounds. The lighthouse was a bust (pretty small and with the hotel right behind it you couldn't even get a cool shot of it) but we still walked around the old fort a bit.

On our way to Hunte's Garden we decided to stop in Bridgetown to walk around a bit. We ended up walking around for maybe an hour - checking out some shops, walking through a park and the harbor, and taking a few pictures along the way.

Fish are friends, NOT FOOD

I believe this was a bank and possibly the Parliament building

A Bajan Bus

Who doesn't love a little color?!

As we were getting into our car we noticed folks WASHING THEIR PONIES IN THE WATER!